Fitbit / Pixel watch workout tracking capabilities

[DavidPixel]

Hey guys,

I bought a Pixel Watch and thus landed in Fitbit community for the first time ever. Was using Garmin Venu 2 until now. Today, I got the watch and completed my wirst workout - Chest day.

I selected 'Weights' exercise in Fitbit and started doing the workout. I noticed few things:

• The watch does not track my sets. With Garmin, when I do one set, the watch tracks my repetitions and asks me for weight of the weights I used.
• The watch does not detect 'Active Minutes'. With Garmin, when you finish one set, it pauses the Active Minutes while you relax before next set.
• At the end of the exercise, the watch did not detect which muscle groups I worked on, nor did it try to 'guess' what kind of exercise I did. Both of which Garmin does.

Am I doing something wrong? Selecting wrong exercise? Or is that just Pixel Watch limitations?
Probably a massive deal breaker for me, but just wanted to verify here.

Thanks.

[t.parker · Accepted solution]

@DavidPixel You do nothing wrong. This is how Fitbit works and the same functionality has been transplanted to Pixel Watch. As a sports tracker, Fitbit is very simple (not to say primitive). The names of sports are mostly labels and only a few include some sport-specific metrics (like speed for cycling, pace for running etc.). Fitbit doesn't count sets, reps and it can't recognize what weight exercise you do. Also, you won't have anything like a muscle map showing which muscles have been affected by the training.

The term "Active Minutes" means something different for Fitbit users. AM used to be a feature before Active Zone Minutes. This may confuse Fitbit users so a short explanation. During weight training, Garmin counts "Work Time" (I believe this is what you meant by "active minutes") and this is the total time of sets. Between, it switches into "Rest" mode. Unfortunately, Fitbit has no such feature.

I already answered the third issue but to confirm, Fitbit does not detect exercises and doesn't create a body/muscle map.

If you need those features Fitbit platform is probably the last place to find them.

[DavidPixel]

Thanks for great clarification. I will be up-front and honest: Today I went to purchase Garmin Epix 2 as my next upgrade. I thought it would be the Pixel Watch due to me owning a Pixel Phone with which I am satisfied. However, coming from Venu 2 Plus, I just could not get used to the 'lack' of features Fitbit provides in terms of Fitness tracking.

[boomski17]

I just picked up a pixel watch and use to be able to track my sets on my Fitbit Versa 2.  This is a huge missing piece on the pixel watch. 

[alexthecat]

@boomski17 In the Pixel Watch app on your phone, scroll down to "Tips and Support". You can leave feedback there for the Pixel Watch development team. They really do read those comments and they are interested in hearing from people.